Guest Column: History behind Common Core State Standards

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I am the “messenger” Richard Reiter refers to in his guest column printed in the Bonanza on 10/10/13.

The name, Common Core State Standards, is misleading because the standards were not written by the states; they were written by Achieve Inc., The College Board (SAT and AP classes) and ACT (college testing), according to the National Governors Association.

The lead writers of the English Language Arts standards, David Coleman and Susan Pimentel, never taught K-12. The lead writers of the math standards, Jason Zimba and Bill McCallum, never taught K-12. The meetings were private and no minutes were ever published.

CC is a “one size fits all” attempt to address the educational needs of every K-12 child in the United States. PBS said, “A massive experiment in American public education.” Our children are the guinea pigs.

Dr. Sandra Stotsky and Dr. James Milgram were the only two people on the 29-member CC Validation Committee who have ever written high state standards; Dr. Milgram math California; and Dr. Sandra Stotsky English language arts Massachusetts.

Stotsky, Milgram plus three other members of the Validation Committee would not sign off on CC. The written objections of these five members were never published.

Dr. Milgram, was also on the Common Core Feedback Committee, he called CC, “a massive ‘risky’ experiment.” Dr. Milgram also said CC, “puts us two years behind high achieving countries in mathematics.”

Dr. Stotsky said, “There is more than one fatal flaw in CC’s ELA standards.”

Both Stotsky and Milgram also pointed out CC is not researched based.

The ill-conceived, flawed standards have never been tested, but 50,000,000 students in 45 states (including Nevada) are using the standards.

Bill Gates through The Gates Foundation is the main financial supporter behind the creation of CC; Gates also financed evaluation of the standards.

Gates also donated to numerous organizations to support and sell CC to the American public including: American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association (NEA), National Governors Association (NGA), Chief Counsel of State School Officers (CCSS), Student Achievement Partners, Achieve Inc., The Fordham Institute, and many others, according to blog posting by Mercedes Schneider on the Huffington Post.

In an interview at Harvard on 9/21/13 Bill Gates said, “It would be great if our education stuff worked, but that we won’t know for probably a decade.”

The United States has allowed one rich man and Arne Duncan (US Secretary of Education) to conduct a risky experiment with 50,000,000 children.

According to Stop Common Core Nevada, the estimated cost to implement this massive experiment is between $8,300,000,000 to $30,000,000,000.